The future: ending the presidential money chase
By Josh Zaharoff
Posted on Thu Oct 11, 2007 at 10:24:32 AM EST
It's early October, and again we're hearing about the gazillions--excuse me, tens of millions--of dollars that the leading presidential candidates are raising, as they report in for the quarter. Bob Edgar, Common Cause President, wrote this Tuesday in the Nashville Tennessean that "the 2008 race so far is memorable mostly for the astounding amount of money that many of the top-tier candidates are each raising -- as much as $80 million so far."
Edgar asks,
What's wrong with this picture?
A lot. Running for president should not be simply about who can raise the most money the fastest; it should be about who has the best solutions and ideas to address the critical public-policy issues we face today: affordable health care, global warming, improving schools, the war in Iraq, to name only a few.
He continues...
We have a presidential public finance system that was put in place more than 30 years ago, after Watergate, to keep the White House off the auction block. It worked well for decades, but has fallen into disrepair....
That means our next president will come into office in early 2009 beholden to the special interests and wealthy individual "bundlers" who collected dozens of checks for the candidate and fueled his or her winning campaign.
And finally lays out the conclusion....
We can't afford this future if we want our democratic system to function for all of us. We're lucky: The solution is right in front of us.
With legislation already introduced in Congress to fix the public-financing system, we will push hard so that in 2012, the next presidential election year, the system is better-funded and updated to reflect the modern, fast-paced campaign calendar. Then, when candidates see they can run a competitive race with public funding, they are likely to use the system. But we also need to go a step further and pass public funding for congressional races, too.
We need a new system, a robust and sustainable version of public financing, a system where the people --from all levels of income -- can play, and can win.
Tags: Tennessee, election 08, public financing, clean elections, money in politics (all tags)
You are not logged in.
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account just by filling out the form below. It's quick and free.
